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Comment by hrehhf | Hacker News Reader

I think a lot of Turkish citizens, and the Turkish government, are frustrated with the long time it has taken and now they have become ambivalent, feeling like they will never be allowed to join the EU. Its very easy to each side to blame the other, but from the Turkish perspective, there needs to be a concrete timeline for the process. Indeed for several years there are clear problems in Turkey that would block them joining EU, but those problems came up only after Turks became frustrated with the slow accession.

As for economic concerns, EU has many trade deals and many EU members would probably be quite happy to have some kind of trade deal without giving Turkey membership, and with how things are today, maybe Turks will just accept that.

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I didn't know Turkey's EU membership was still being considered. I think it's quite clear that EU membership will not happen under Erdogan or any government he or his successors set up. Even if he were removed, there is a long way to go. You have to be a free democratic country. Instead of working towards that, in the last year, all Turkey has done is show the world the opposite. How can you possibly expect things to speed up when the Turkish government is doing everything it can to put the brakes on the deal?

>How can you possibly expect things to speed up when the Turkish government is doing everything it can to put the brakes on the deal?

I was trying to say that Turks have, more or less, given up on joining the EU. Not because they don't want to, but because they feel like it has become hopeless. I agree that the past several years have done nothing to help the situation.

Remember, Turkey joining is supposed to be mutually beneficial, so if EU sees some benefit to Turkey joining, then probably there needs to be a concrete timeline (so that Turks see light at the end of the tunnel) and, obviously, Turkey will have to meet the requirements. For many years, Turkey was a free democratic country (though not perfect!) but still they did not join the EU.

edit: Turkey first applied for membership to the EU about 30 years ago. That is a long time; longer than any other applicant to the EU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_the_European_Un...

It is indeed a long time, much longer than i thought.. Then again, Turkey has always fared well with our coöperation ( it was a very popular tourist destination), this also isn't a reason for his current actions.

I think it's fair to say that the negotation is finally over and even a trade agreement shouldn't be in the making. You can't build trust with distrust. You can't start a trade agreement with threats.

Hungary.

Yes, this is exactly the sort of problem that the EU wants to avoid. Hungary joined the EU in 2004. Since the Fidesz party was elected in 2010, Hungary turned increasingly authoritarian; Fidesz had a sufficient majority to institute a new constitution in Hungary that removed checks and balances between different branches of government, and it turned out that the EU can do very little to counter such developments.

The main ways to sanction governments of EU member states, such as temporary suspending of voting rights in EU decision making, and EU funding, require unanimous approval of all other EU member states, and as soon as you have 2 member states who are afraid of such sanctions they will put in their veto in favor of each other, as has happened repeatedly with Poland and Hungary in recent years.

Since what happened to Greece, I think we have to be carefull who we allow. I do agree that it is taking long, Turkey tries to force themselves in the EU. I don't think that's how a future member should act. The EU had been long in the making and a country that can't join in a span of 3 years of isn't bad considered the consequences it has on both sides

> ...can't join in a span of 3 years...

Turkey first applied for membership to the EU about 30 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_the_European_Un...

I do agree, i'm suprised they started 30 years ago. Since Turkey isn't part of Europe.

https://www.reference.com/geography/turkey-part-europe-ad085...

> Since Turkey isn't part of Europe.

Ok, this is a completely separate point, which was discussed early on in Turkey's application, but I think the fact that talks have gone on this long indicates that EU officials do consider Turkey to be "close enough" to Europe.

Its a bit ambiguous, geographically speaking. UK, Ireland and even Cyprus were accepted into the EU. Georgia, Iceland, and Greenland are all considered possible candidates to join the EU if they want to. [1] (I'm aware that Greenland is a territory of Denmark but officially Greenland is not part of the EU.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EU28-further_enlargement_...

I'm not saying they are not allowed because they aren't in Europe. I wouldn't have thought they considered it since 30 years, since most of Europe or formally EG started with France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany ( and before that the Benelux)

Perhaps that's better explained.

Ps. Where are you from?

I guess I didn't understand what you meant by "not in Europe." I thought you meant geographically.

I'm American and I live in the US. My parents are Turkish, and also US citizens. We do not like how things are going in Turkey and I agree that now there is no way Turkey will join the EU.

What about you?

From Belgium, and even I think that we should not be allowed in the EU.

At it's core, the principles of the EU are great. But members were cheating, we have to much debt to be allowed in the EU when you look at the 'requirements' , but perhaps that's another discussion

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